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By Anita Warren
Problem—solution. Sounds simple. Creating a solution—not so simple. Creating
a solution that is effective, efficient, and long term—that can be a problem,
unless you have a dedicated, innovative team of individuals working on it.
Computing Services boasts a number of such teams that pool their talent when
serious challenges arise on campus. Earlier this year, the Computing Services
directors, in collaboration with Dartmouth’s Provost’s Office, Office of Human
Resources, and Executive Vice President’s Office, unveiled a program that
rewards creative problem solving by Computing Services personnel. These awards,
granted each quarter, recognize “special assignments and/or projects that are
exceptional in nature, require considerable extra effort and top performance,
and are nonrecurring.” The first four teams were honored for their efforts this
past June.
System Rx. In April, on the day Dartmouth posts its admissions
decisions online, more than 12,000 hopeful applicants visit the College’s Web
site to learn whether they have been accepted. Last year, thousands of them
logged on in the hour immediately following the posting, creating heavy demand
on the system. “When the applicants tried to log in, they either got error
messages or their system stalled; they experienced some difficulty getting the
information,” explains Susan Zaslaw, Interim Director of Administrative
Computing. The situation was complicated to troubleshoot because of the number
of hardware components involved, including a database server, application
server, load balancer, and firewall machine, that had to work in concert to
accommodate the enormous simultaneous demand.
Jon Crossett, Phil Hobbie, Rik King, Dan Longnecker, Terry Rosenmeir, and
Paul Schmidt joined forces from different groups within Computing Services to
solve the problem. Over the course of several months, this multi-departmental
team created and applied load simulation exercises to determine the technical
settings needed to support the anticipated system demand. When online
admissions day dawned this past April, team members set up a “war room” in a
building on campus and monitored a bank of computers to ensure demand didn’t
exceed capacity limits.
“We were watching to make sure that problems weren’t developing as
applicants began logging in, but if they did, we were in a position to make
some quick changes and deal with it,” says Zaslaw. “As it turned out, all of
the planning and testing work we did ensured that the process went really
smoothly. We didn’t even get close to hitting any load limits on our servers.
It went great.”
Fast Fix. Last spring, Dartmouth was invaded by a bug: the Trojan
Clicker virus. The virus spread quickly through the school’s computing
environment before it was detected. Antivirus vendors did provide a remedy to
the College, but the remedy itself became a problem when it prevented hundreds
of users with a Windows platform from logging on to the system. “People could
not get anything done; they were dead in the water,” says Ellen Young, Manager
of Consulting Services. “Even so, most people were very understanding and
patient. They didn’t take their frustration at not being able to use their
computers out on us.”
Tish Aldom, Warren Belding, Tim Chiacchira, Kevin Grady, Nicole Hamilton,
Jeff Hawkins, Derek Hoffman, Rob Johnson, Barbara Mellert, Peter Paplow, and
Heather Varney rose to the challenge. Working closely together, the team
developed, tested, and approved a fix that was applied successfully to Windows
XP and Windows 2000 operating systems—all in just a few days.
“The consultants collaborated and communicated well to find a solution as
quickly as possible that would allow other members of the Dartmouth community
to get back to work as soon as possible,” says Young, who nominated the group
for the award. “They had to suspend what they had previously scheduled for
those days so they could really focus on this problem—shut it down so it didn’t
spread to other people. They really went the extra mile.”
Above and Beyond. Also at the awards ceremony last June, five other
individuals were recognized for their “extra effort and top performance.” Three
of them—Christopher Ivanyi, Robin Lull, and Dustin Maurice—received an award
for doing the work of four people for four months in the absence of a member of
their classroom technician team. The group worked evenings and weekends, as
well as during the work week, to cover the additional workload. And Theresa
Woodward and Jeff Page were singled out for going the extra mile—and overcoming
obstacles en route—to ensure the Computer Store and Repair Shop’s new
point-of-sale system was implemented before the end of the term.
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